a new knitting project

The January/February 2014 issue of Piecework Magazine is the historical knitting issue. I found all of the articles very interesting this time, but one in particular enticed me to actually knit something. One of the articles is about textile artifacts found at Magdelena de Cao Viejo, Peru. According to the article, the town was settled in 1578 and abandoned around 1712, after an earthquake. The textile artifacts found are presumed to date from that period. Four stocking remnants have been identified - two made from wool, two from cotton. I decided to make myself a pair of stockings based on the information given for the four pieces.

For my pattern, I knit the stripe pattern found in the cotton stockings, but used my handspun wool. My stockings reach my knee, and will be held up with tablet woven garters. The original wool artifact is made with ss-Z yarn, with a gauge of 14 stitches and 20 rows per inch (see p. 12 of the magazine). My yarn is spun zz-S, and it is knit at a gauge of 9 stitches and 12 rows per inch, using size 1 needles. Clearly the original was much finer, but I began with some Finn yarn that I had previously spun, so that set my gauge (and my spin direction).

Two shades of madder-dyed wool are used for the stripes. The lighter one is BFL; the darker is merino.

I soon discovered that I didn't have enough of the lighter shade of wool to complete both pieces. For the second stocking I am reversing the colors. It takes a lot of yarn to make knee-high socks!